LUTHER W. COVELL'S 

BOOK. 

J •/- •* 



IsTO 




i. I- (gag* ff Co/s Utemtalg for (Emjjxrs. 



Kco-v^r TO 



SECURE AND RETAIN 

■ 

ATTENTION. 



JAMES L. HUGHES, 



Inspector of Public Schools, Toronto, Canada. 



%%0 



Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy and science 
depend upon it.'' 



SECOND EDITION. 



W. J. GAGE & CO., TOEONTO, CANADA. 

W. KENT & CO., PATEBNOSTEB BOW, LONDON, ENGLAND. 

A. S. BARNES & CO., NEW TOBK, U.S. 







Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada in the year 
1880 by W. J. Gage & Company, in the office of the Minister 
of Agriculture. 




PREFACE. 



" There is and there can be no teaching, where 
the attention of the scholar is not secured. The 
teacher who fails to get the attention of his 
scholars, fails totally." So writes a thoughtful 
educator, and every observant teacher knows that 
the statements are correct. The most important 
work of a teacher both in regard to the learning 
of school lessons and the formation of proper 
mental habits by his pupils, is the development 
of the power to give concentrated and sustained 
attention to a subject. 

While fully agreeing with the opinion that 
natural aptitude has much to do in deciding the 
measure of a teacher's success, the author knows 
that the power of securing and retaining atten- 
tion can be acquired and developed. This book 
has been written with a sincere desire to aid in 
the accomplishment of this important object. 

Toronto, February 20th, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 

Chap. . Page 
I. Kinds of Attention. . . i 

II. Characteristics ol Positive Attention 4 

III. Characteristics of the Teacher in securing and 

retaining Attention 19 

IV. Conditions of Attention 23 

V. How to control a class 29 

VI. Method of preserving and stimulating the pupils' 

desire for knowledge 36 

VII. How to gratify and develop the natural desire for 

mental activity 48 

VIII. The cultivation of the Senses 62 

IX. General Suggestions , 75 



«$ott 




HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN 
ATTENTION. 



CHAPTER I. 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 



Attention may be Negative or Positive. 

Negative Attention. A pupil may look 

without seeing, listen without being conscious of 
hearing, and hear without comprehending. He 
may sit and dream. The mind has inner as well 
as outer gates. The outer gates admit merely to 
the courtyard of the mind. A great many pupils 
keep the inner doors closed to much of the teach- 
ing done by their teachers. We may perceive 
without receiving distinct conceptions. Thou- 
sands look at a store window in passing it with- 
out being able to name or even give the color of 
a single article in it. 



2 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

We may hear ^lso without taking in the 
thoughts of the person speaking. How often men 
sit in church and hear a preacher's voice without 
noting his words ! The sounds he makes get 
through the gates of the castle wall, but the cas- 
tle itself is shut and filled with other tenants. 
The telephonic key has not been adjusted, and 
direct communication has not been established. 
We hear various sounds — the bell of the factory 
or the school, the whistle of the steam engine, 
the song of the birds, &c. — without always being 
consciously impressed by them. Sometimes they 
influence or arrest our lines of thought, but more 
frequently, unless they convey a special message 
to us, we allow them to pass unheeded. Nega- 
tive attention consists in the outward marks of 
attention merely. It is a form without reality ; 
a seed without an active germ, from which noth- 
ing of life and beauty can ever spring. 

Positive Attention. A pupil who gives 

positive or active attention, is attentive not 
merely with his body but with his mind. He has 
the inner as well as the outer gates of his mind 
open. His mind must be willing to receive the 
thoughts his teacher has to communicate, and it 
must not be preoccupied, or actively engaged with 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 3 

other thoughts. He must for a time forget his 
personality, and turn from thoughts of his own 
plays and work and all that directly interests him 
outside of the lesson. He must get out of his 
own current of thought and into that of his 
teacher. 

Positive attention stands opposed to that 
rambling state of mind in which the thoughts 
move continually from one topic to another with- 
out dwelling upon any ; and also to that apa. 
thetic and listless condition of the mind in which 
it is not conscious of thought; or in which ideas, 
if they exist, leave no trace in the memory. It 
is the kind of attention which a teacher must 
have from his pupils if he wishes to impress 
them. If he secures only negative, the minds ol 
his scholars may be a thousand miles away, 
whilst their bodies may occupy positions of rev- 
erent attention. 





CHAPTER II. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. 



1. Positive attention may be either 
instinctive or controlled. 



Instinctive attention. Attention may be 
won or directed, attracted or guided. Pupils 
may give attention to a subject because they 
are interested in it, or because they are con- 
vinced that they will receive benefit from so 
attending. We attend to many things without 
effort, and even in opposition to our wishes. 
Those things which give us either pleasure or 
pain demand and receive our attention in pro- 
portion to the intensity of the interest they 
have for us. The little child gives attention 
because it is a delight to do so. It attends to 
one thing until another becomes more attrac- 
tive. " Observation, attention, concentration, 
4 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. 5 

last so long as enjoyment lasts and no longer." 
The mind of the little one flies like the bee 
from flower to flower, and it gets something 
every time it alights. The child does not pass 
from object to object for the sake of information 
however, but on account of the beauty and 
attractiveness of the things themselves. Never- 
theless it gathers the knowledge more easily and 
more rapidly than it ever does afterwards, 
even when the acquisition of knowledge is its 
direct object. The child learns more between 
the ages of two and a half and four years' 
than it does during any five years afterwards. 
He has learned a language, and speaks it 
correctly both as regards grammar and pro- 
nunciation, if he has listened to good speaking. 
He is intimately acquainted with the worlds 
of nature and of art so far as he has come in 
contact with them. He knows the relations of 
things to each other and to himself. He cannot 
explain, but he puts in practice the principles of 
philosophy. He is even capable to a far greater 
extent than he usually gets credit for, of esti- 
mating and appreciating the motives as well 
as the actions of the adults by whom he is sur- 
rounded. 



6 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

He could not have learned thus rapidly, if it 
had not been for the power of instinctive at- 
tention, the intensity of which in a child is so 
great as to require but a short time to gather 
ideas. Teachers will do well to note carefully, not 
only the marvellous rapidity with which know- 
ledge is acquired in early years, but the distinct- 
ness and permanency of ideas received in the 
days of childhood. Many parents and teachers 
complain of the flightiness of children, and their 
lack of continuity in giving fixed attention to 
a subject. If these wise grumblers would only 
reflect, they would find that this tendency to 
pay attention to whatever gives the highest 
degree of joy or pain is a characteristic of 
childhood impressed by our Creator. The re- 
sults already noted clearly prove that it is not 
necessary to give long continued so much as 
oft repeated attention to a subject in order to 
become acquainted with it. The clearness and 
permanency of ideas depends on the interest 
and intensity of attention rather than its con- 
tinuance. If the best teachers could only suc- 
ceed in making children learn one half as 
rapidly during school days as they did in their 
homes or in the fields and woods before school 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. . 7 

life began, they would have great reason to 
congratulate themselves. 

Why do children not continue to manifest 
the same degree of interested or instinctive at- 
tention through life, that they showed in early 
years ? Is the change due to an altered mental 
nature, or is it caused by improper methods of 
teaching ? Partly to both, but mainly to the 
latter. Professor Payne says, "It is certain, 
that there are processes of so-called education 
in vogue amongst us which, by the assidu- 
ous cultivation of mere rote memory, con- 
vert teaching into a mechanical grind of words, 
and thus defeat the very aim of true education, 
which is to store the mind with ideas, and only 
to recognize words as far as they minister to 
this end. The lamentable results of such 
methods which make much provision for feed- 
ing and none for digestion is to rum irrepar- 
ably the appetite for knowledge — the knowledge 
which consists in ideas not words. Hence it 
is that we see children, who in their earliest 
years were distinguished for mental ability 
transformed into dunces at school — a conse- 
quence obviously due to what is miscalled their 
education ; for the number of children really 
stupid by nature is probably not at all greater 



8 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

than that of those born blind, or deaf and 
dumb.'* 

There is one fundamental difference between 
the natural method and the school method of 
teaching, which is worthy of careful thought by 
teachers. Before school the learning has not 
been the direct object aimed at. It has been 
incidental. The child was attracted by some- 
thing, and he watched it, or handled it, or used 
it, in order to add to his happiness. He was 
not attending to lessons merely, but he learned 
them thoroughly, as the result of his doing. 
School work cannot all be done on this principle, 
but it should be done so as far as possible. There 
will be enough " drudgery " under the most 
favorable circumstances to serve for mental 
discipline. 

Frcebel in his Kindergarten system has sought 
to utilize the instinctive attention of children 
to the fullest extent. He recognizes the im- 
mense rapidity and value of the development 
of even the infant mind, and sets to work with 
the idea of systematizing the child's work 
without in any sense curtailing his enjoyment. 
He consequently brings him in contact with 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. 9 

a carefully graded series of objects and occu- 
pations which are most attractive to him, and 
at the same time are admirably suited to the 
growth of his observant and reflective powers. 
He also allows him to have ample opportunity 
for unrestrained but directed play. There are 
some who, having merely glanced theoretically 
[or practically at the surface of Kindergarten 
work, wisely express the opinion that it is 
" only play." It is scarcely honest for a man 
to give oracular decisions with such a small 
amount of investigation. There would not be 
much gold in the Kindergarten system, if a 
casual and unprofessional observer could find 
it all in a few minutes. The truth is that the 
Kindergarten system, by extending the period 
of instinctive, involuntary attention, has done a 
great deal towards the bridging over of the 
great gulf between the home and the school. 
What is needed in addition is the strengthen- 
ing and completion of the bridge at its school 
end. In some subjects the Kindergarten sys- 
tem should be carried out even in universities. 

Controlled Attention. Bain says, -The 

beginnings of knowledge are in activity or in 



IO HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

pleasure, but the culminating point is in the 
power of attending to things in themselves in- 
different.'" It must not be forgotten that while 
instinctive or attracted attention is the most 
effective kind in gaining knowledge, controlled 
or directed attention is of more importance 
as a mental discipline. All studies cannot be 
made so attractive that students will prosecute 
them with ardor on account of the delight they 
afford. Different minds are fond of studying 
different subjects. Study may be a species 
of mental dissipation. As children grow older 
therefore, they should be introduced gradually 
to those subjects which are less attractive. The 
mistake that is too often made in both public 
and Sunday schools is to expect young chil- 
dren to attend to the teaching of subjects to 
which they are indifferent. To do this requires 
the exercise of a will power which they do not 
possess. Dr. Carpenter expresses himself very 
clearly on this point. He says, " Those strong- 
minded teachers who object to these modes of 
'making things pleasant' as an unworthy and 
undesirable ' weakness ' are ignorant that in this 
stage of the child-mind, the will, that is the 
power of self control, is weak, and that the 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. II 

primary object of education is to encourage 
and strengthen, not to repress that power * * 
To punish a child for the want of obedience 
which it has not the power to render, is to 
inflict an injury which may almost be said to 
be irreparable." 

It will not do on the other hand to allow 
the., child to grow up with the idea that none 
of the problems of life are uninviting in them- 
selves. The teacher should fit his pupils for 
grappling with and mastering difficulties, even 
with what is distasteful. One of the most im- 
portant of all the mental powers is the will ; 
and it must be called into action in fixing the 
attention to these subjects that cannot be made 
attractive. " God has given us the power or 
capacity to direct the mind to any given ob- 
ject — that is, of directing, controlling, and in 
any way using the several mental faculties of 
which we are possessed: just as we have a 
like power over the various members of the 
body." Let this power be developed, but let the 
teacher carefully avoid depending upon compul- 
sory attention as a substitute for good teach- 
ing. 

2. Positive attention is a " result of good 



12 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

teaching rather than a condition on which 
the power to teach well depends." Those 

effeminate or fossilized teachers who weakly say 
" Oh, dear ! If my pupils would only give me 
their attention, I could teach them so well," 
should honestly say, " If I taught better, my 
class would attend to my teaching." 



3. Positive attention cannot be secured 
by demanding it, or by coaxing, scolding, 
commanding, threatening, or reasoning. 

The maxim, " One man may lead a horse to 
the water, but ten men cannot make him drink," 
applies with great force here. Negative attention 
may be secured by compulsion, positive cannot 
be forced. We can force order, and submission, 
but not active attention. It must be willingly 
given. He who demands something entirely be- 
yond the limits of his control, demonstrates his 
own weakness and presumption. Coaxing, scold- 
ing, commanding and threatening very soon 
lose their influence, ' and, if indulged in after 
that point has been reached, they secure for the 
teachers who use them the disrespect of their 
pupils. Even reasoning with pupils cannot per- 
manently secure attention. It will certainly be 
of service for the teacher to show his pupils 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. 13 

clearly the necessity for attention, and the 
benefits arising from it. This will produce in 
them a mental attitude favorable to attention, 
and* will thereby make it easier for the/n to 
do their part, but it does not relieve the teacher 
of his responsibility for sustaining the interest 
in the lesson. 



4. Positive attention should be undi- 
vided. Some children have difficulty in con- 
centrating their attention. Their minds do not 
merely pass rapidly from one thing to another ; 
two or three subjects of an entirely different 
nature will occupy them at the same time. It 
is possible for a man to give his attention to 
two things at once, but the attention given to 
one of them is taken from the other. It is one 
of the highest duties which a teacher owes to his 
pupils to train them to be able to fix their un- 
divided attention on one subject. The extent to 
which a man can rivet his attention, and control 
the working of his own mind, decides the standard 
of his intellectual power. The force of a stream 
becomes resistless as its channel becomes re- 
stricted. The genial rays of the sun when 
brought to a focus have intense burning power. 



14 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

The mind which admits various subjeets at the 
same time, and as a result becomes confused and 
full of but indistinct ideas, might, if all its 
eneiMcies were directed to the investigation of 
only one subject, mount with majestic tread 
from height to height in original investigation. 

It is a difficult matter, however, even for 
adults to concentrate their attention on the one 
subject in hand. How often the thoughts 
which we hear expressed, or which we read, 
make no deeper impressions on our minds than 
the " shadows of the passing clouds do upon 
a landscape." A teacher should be patient 
when he finds some active brained boy or girl 
is in " wonder-land," when he is supposed to 
be revelling in the delights of complex frac- 
tions. It is often injurious to a very young 
child to startle it from its reveries. Mental 
links may thus be broken which will never be re- 
united. This remark should, however, be noted 
by parents and teachers of individuals, rather 
than by teachers of classes. 

5- Positive attention should be intense- 

The permanency of impressions made upon the 
mind by the teacher or by circumstances de- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. 15 

pends upon the intensity of the attention given. 
Some single events have burned their impress 
upon the tablets of our memory, so that they 
can never be forgotten. It matters not whether 
the circumstances have caused intense joy or 
pain, if the sensations they caused have been 
acute, their remembrance remains vivid. There 
are few who would not forget some things, if 
they could. Why is it that we cannot forget 
some things ? Simply because they interested 
us so much. We walk through the streets oi 
a city and we look into the faces of thousands 
of strangers. Why is it that of all these perhaps 
but one is photographed indelibly in our re- 
membrance ? Because it reminded us of some 
other person closely connected with our lives 
by the links of love or hate, or because for 
some reason it strongly attracted or repelled us. 
We look at and admire the beautiful flowers 
which bloom around our pathway as we ramble 
in the woods or gardens in the early summer 
time. • We perchance may gather bouquets of 
those we deem most exquisitely beautiful. A 
month afterwards we may not remember the 
varieties we collected or the precise localities 
in the woods or gardens from which we plucked 
them. Let a companion who has roused in us 
a strong deep feeling either of love or respect, 



l6 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

pick and present one blossom to us, and we 
remember exactly its hues and shape, as well 
as the very spot on which the presentation took 
place. Numerous other illustrations might be 
given, were they necessary to show that when 
the attention is intense, the impressions made 
are distinct and lasting. 

Teachers should therefore strive to secure a 
large degree of intensity of attention on the part 
of their pupils. This may not be possible in 
every part of every lesson, but there should at 
least be some part of every lesson which will 
arrest the involuntary attention of every pupil. 
If only one flower be clearly pictured in the 
memory, that one serves to recall the ramble 
and its pleasures. If some salient or culminat- 
ing point in a lesson be illustrated, or presented 
in an impressive or even startling manner so as 
to condense the attention on it, it will form a 
magnet around which the other facts taught 
will group themselves. Bain says : " Intensity 
of sensation whether pleasing or not is a power." 
Of course it would be unwise to try to keep the 
attention constantly strained to too great an ex- 
tent. The effects of such a course both physi- 
cally and mentally would be disastrous., 



CHARACTERISTICS OF POSITIVE ATTENTION. 1 7 

6- Positive attention should be fixed- 
Startling a class to make them attend is not a 
wise course. Some teachers try an explosive 
method of securing attention. They first .help- 
lessly allow the class to drift into a state of 
disorder and confusion, and then suddenly comes 
a thunderclap ; the desk is struck violently with 
a ruler, or the floor is stamped upon heavily. 
Attention may be gained in such a way, but 
only of a temporary kind. The noise of the 
pupils yields for a time, but very soon it re- 
asserts itself. Attention to be valuable must be 
fixed. Teachers should, of course, never forget 
that giving fixed, active attention is an exhaustive 
exercise, and that relaxation in some form — 
music, free gymnastics, or both combined — 
should be given to pupils at frequent intervals. 

The attention which the teacher should try 
to secure should therefore be: 

1- Active- 

2- Instinctive or Controlled ; i* possible the 

former. It should be won rather than forced. 

3- Willingly given- 
4 Undivided. 

5- Intense- 

6- Fixed- 




$<&$¥$. 



CHAPTER III. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHER ESSENTIAL 
IN SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



1- Cheerfulness- Unless the teacher be 
cheerful and kind in manner he cannot secure 
the sympathy of his pupils thoroughly, and 
without it he cannot obtain proper attention. 
The pupils insensibly associate the teacher 
with the subjects taught, and unless attracted 
by the former they are not likely to be interested 
in the latter. 

2- Earnestness- The teacher's manner will 
influence his pupils for good more than his pre- 
cepts or advice. They may laugh at his logic, 
they cannot resist his personal power. If a 
man is not in earnest his pupils will not be 
zealous. He justifies inattention, if he does 
not speak and act in such a way as to show 

18 



CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHER. IO, 

that he regards his subjects to be of great im- 
portance. 

3- Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is well directed 
energy, not mere excitement or assumed anima- 
tion. Enthusiasm must spring from a genuine 
fervent desire for the accomplishment of a well 
understood purpose. Enthusiasm in teaching 
must grow from a love for the work, a thorough 
acquaintance with the subjects to be taught, 
and a deep conviction of the great value of 
education in forming the characters and secur- 
ing the success of his pupils. Some one says, 
" Enthusiastic men are narrow." Perhaps they 
are to a certain extent, but narrowing a man's 
energies to his legitimate work is the most es- 
sential foundation for his success. The teacher 
should widen his mental range, and concentrate 
his energies and his emotional nature. " Enthusi- 
asm is not a reckless- zeal without knowledge ; 
neither is it that overplus of feeling or action 
that overdoes the work, but undoes the worker. 
But it does consist in the combination of a high 
appreciation of the importance of your work, 
and a hearty zeal in the accomplishment of 
that work. Fanaticism is zeal without know- 
ledge ; indifference is no zeal whatever ; enthu- 
siasm is a zeal tempered by prudence, modified 



20 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

by knowledge. Indifference chills; enthusiasm 
warms and quickens. A teacher without enthu- 
siasm has no right to be a teacher. He cannot 
be one in the truest and broadest sense without 
it," 

4. Quietness- Some teachers act as though 
noise and bustle were equivalent to energy and 
enthusiasm. The mighty Corliss Engine in Ma- 
chinery Hall at the Centennial Exhibition at 
Philadelphia in 1876, made less noise than al- 
most any of the hundreds of machines which 
it set in motion. So in the schoolroom, the 
teacher should be the great motive power, 
mighty without being noisy, which sets the human 
machines around him to work for themselves, 
" Noise and emptiness often travel together." 
Noisy teachers make noisy pupils. Some teach- 
ers are so noisy and demonstrative that they 
attract attention to themselves and not to the 
subjects they are teaching. Ii teachers speak 
in a loud tone, and in a high key their pupils 
qannot listen to them long. Inattention and 
consequent disorder always mark the classes 
taught by piping teachers. 

5. Decision. The teacher's every act, look 



CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHER. 21 

and tone should clearly indicate decision. He 
must wear the dignity of his superior position 
as though it fitted him well. He must under- 
stand himself and his subjects. There must 
be no assumption in his bearing. There is a 
magnetic force connected with a man who has 
definiteness of aim and deliberation in action. 
The will power of such a man is irresistible in 
its influence over those with whom he comes 
in contact. This is true even when they are of 
his own age ; it is true to a greater extent when 
they are his juniors. 

6. Power to maintain interest. The 

teacher must not be too wordy. Fluency often 
drowns thought. Pupils will not exercise their 
minds, if the teacher does their thinking for 
them. The best way to make a subject interest- 
ing and attractive is to set the pupils to work 
at making discoveries concerning it. The won- 
drous caves and marvellous treasures of knowl- 
edge may be opened and pointed out by the 
teacher, but they should be investigated by the 
pupils themselves. In some way, however, the 
interest must be kept up, and as far as possible 
the subjects taught should be made attractive 



22 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

in themselves, without reference to the benefits 
they confer. As has been .explained already, 
the permanency of impressions depends upon 
the intensity of the attention given ; it is equally 
true that intensity of attention depends upon 
the interest taken in the subject itself. 

7- The possession of " will power" Con- 
trol is a necessary element in securing atten- 
tion. The most perfect control can secure only 
negative attention, but this is an essential con- 
dition of positive attention. The teacher should 
have no difficulty in convincing his class that 
some ojte person must be the controlling power 
in the school, and that his age, experience and 
developed force of character eminently fit him 
for the position ol unchallenged leader. The 
teacher who, when occasion demands it, has 
not the power to secure complete submission 
from his pupils by an arbitrary use of " will 
power " is unfit for his position. 





CHAPTER IV. 



CONDITIONS OF ATTENTION. 

1. Physical requisites- The room must be 

well lighted. Children cannot be bright and 
happy in a room that is insufficiently or badly 
lighted. The light should never come from the 
front or the right of pupils. It is best when 
admitted only from the left, but a left and rear 
light is admissible. All windows should reach 
well up towards the ceiling, and they should 
not extend too low down. It is better when all the 
light is admitted above the level of the eye. 

2. The room must be properly ventilated. Un- 
less it is, the health of the children is injuri- 
ously affected, and their spirits are depressed. 



3. The temperature must be regulated. Pupils 
cannot be quiet and studious when their toes and 
23 



24 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

fingers are cold. They become tired and in- 
dolent if the temperature rises too high. Cold 
feet and hot heads at the same time are bad 
for the health in many respects. The normal 
temperature is about 65 degrees. 

4. The pupils must be seated comfortably. The 
two essentials for comfort are — 

1. The seats must not be too high. 

2. The backs should fit the pupils' spinal 
curvature. 

A child's feet should rest on the floor, so 
that no part of the weight of the leg is borne 
by the thigh bone. Many seats have backs 
too high, others are too low, and sometimes 
the seats in galleries have no backs at all. 
Either arrangement is a cause of pain to the 
children who sit on such seats. 

5. Children should be allowed to change their 
posture frequently . The body tires sooner than 
the mind. Even if supplied with comfortable 
seats, remaining in one position too long causes 
injury to the body, and compels the withdrawal 
of the mind from the lesson, to note the ne- 
cessities of physical comfort. 



CONDITIONS OF ATTENTION. 25 

If the teacher notices his pupils unusually 
restless and inattentive, he should allow them 
to spend say half a minute in some simple 
physical exercises. Even standing up and sit- 
ing down will aid in removing listlessness, and 
the disorder resulting from nervous restlessness. 
Exercises should always, if possible, be per- 
formed in time with music. They then form 
the most powerful and, what is of more import- 
ance, the most natural disciplinary agent a 
teacher can employ. 

2. Good classification- Proper classification 
promotes attention in two ways. Unless the 
pupils in a class are graded according to their 
attainments, the subjects and methods adapted 
to the advancement and capabilities of one 
portion will be quite unsuited to the other. It 
is comparatively useless to try to steer a middle 
course. The more advanced will not give good 
attention because they think they are acquainted 
with the subject already, the more backward 
will usually fail to give close attention from 
sheer inability to keep up and clearly compre- 
hend the teaching. Judicious grading also en- 
ables the teacher to secure a proper alternation 
of lessons on the programme of study, and to 
carry out the time table without waste of time. 



26 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

3. Good Order- Order is an essential pre- 
liminary step in securing and retaining atten- 
tion. Attention cannot be concentrated and in- 
tense, except under favorable circumstances. 
Disorder, unnecessary movement, bustle, con- 
fusion, chattering, and even whispering, distracts 
the attention. Those who talk must themselves 
be inattentive, and they prevent attention on 
the part of those to whom they speak. A re- 
cent American writer says : " Silence is the basis 
for the culture of internality or reflection — the 
soil in which thought grows. It allows the re- 
pose of the senses and the awakening of insight 
and reflection. In our schools this is carried 
further than merely negative silence and the 
pupil is taught the difficult but essential habit 
of absorption in his proper task even when a 
lively recitation is going on with another class. 
He must acquire the strength of mind ( of inter- 
nality) which will enable him to pursue with- 
out distraction his train of thought and study, 
under any external conditions. Out of this dis- 
cipline grow attention, memory, thought — the 
three factors of theoretic culture." 

The teacher must carefully guard against the 
mistake of supposing that order and attention 
are equivalent. A class may be very orderly, 



CONDITIONS OF ATTENTION. 2J 

and at the same time in a state of mental in- 
activity. Order and attention are quite distinct, 
but closely related to each other. Order is in- 
dispensable in securing attention ; attention is 
absolutely requisite in maintaining order. 

4. Full Control. While order should be 
maintained by giving the pupils plenty of work 
to engage their attention, it frequently becomes 
necessary to secure it by direct controlling 
power. To influence his pupils properly a 
teacher must first learn to control them. In 
teaching them to apply themselves to the study 
of subjects " indifferent," or uninteresting ; in 
forming habits of mental attention for benefit 
rather than pleasure; in developing the will 
power of pupils ; and the teacher's mind must as- 
sume not only a guiding but a governing func- 
tion. It is of course true that * the minds of 
the pupils may influence that of the teacher, 
but the extent to which this is true depends 
almost entirely on the teacher himself. Four 
things settle the question of mental control be- 
tween the teacher and the taught. 

i. The natural strength of fhe teacher's 
mind. 



28 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

2. His force of character. 

3. The interest he takes in his work. 

4. The clearness of his conception of the 
subjects he desires to teach. 

The weak, careless, indolent teacher, who 

has not thoroughly prepared the special lesson 

he has to teach, will not be a controlling 
power to a very large extent. 





CHAPTER V. 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. 



It is clear from what has already been said 
that gaining control is a totally different matter 
from securing attention. Attention includes con- 
trol, however, and it is therefore necessary that 
a teacher should control his pupils as a basis 
for obtaining attention from them. This he 
may do as follows : 

1. By standing or sitting so as to see 

his Whole class- If a pupil feels that his 
teacher's eye is constantly and quietly taking 
note of all that is going on in his class, he can- 
not fail to be conscious of its controlling power. 
Unless he is defiant or exceedingly thoughtless 
he will need little more than the teacher's untir- 
29 



30 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

ing eye to restrain him. The eye can be culti- 
vated and its range of vision greatly widened. 
Few teachers have the power to see and watch 
every pupil in a class of fifty at the same in- 
stant, but every teacher may acquire the ability 
to do so. It is astonishing to what extent clear- 
ness of lateral vision may be developed, without 
rolling the eyes from side to side. An uneasy, 
nervous movement of the eyes, or a fixed stare 
neutralizes the influence they might exert. The 
seeing should be done without any apparent 
effort, but it should be, done, and done uner- 
ringly. Even when using the blackboard the 
teacher should avoid turning his back to his 
class. "The eye has a magic power. It wins, 
it fascinates, it guides, it rewards, it punishes, 
it controls. You must learn how to see every 
child all the time." 



2- Inattention must be noticed and 

checked in time. It is an epidemic, which may 
be easily controlled in its incipient stage. The 
fire that sweeps away in a breath the proudest 
structures of a mighty city might have been 
quenched with a few drops of water. It is 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. 31 

madness to allow a wave of disorder to roll on 
and on until it has engulfed a whole class, 
and then attempt to break its force by a 
counter disorder of greater violence. " A stitch 
in time saves nine " is as true in school as in 
other places. The inattention of one pupil in a 
large class, if of such a negative character as 
not to attract the attention of others, some- 
times may be allowed to pass unnoticed. It 
may cost too much to secure the attention of 
such a pupil. The whole class may be diverted 
from the subject under consideration in doing 
so, and a positive evil substituted for a nega- 
tive. The class should not be sacrificed 
for the individual. He may be informed at 
the close of the lesson, or before passing to a 
new line of thonght, that his negligence has 
been noticed. This will soon cure him, and it 
will at the same time impress the rest of the 
class with the idea that the teacher regards 
their attention as of such vital importance 
as to avoid allowing anything unnecessarily to 
interrupt it. They will learn the importance 
of giving attention from his actions and manner 
more clearly than from his words. But as 
soon as passive inattention develops into the 
first symptoms ot disorder, action must be 



32 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION 

taken instantly. How should this action be 
taken ? In the quietest possible manner. The 
cure of the affected portion should be made 
without injury to any other part. If the 
teacher's object is to startle the whole class 
and completely dissipate their attention from 
the subject in hand, he should scold the 
offender or strike the desk, or stamp on the 
floor, or snappishly demand " attention." If 
he wishes to gain the attention of the careless 
pupil without allowing any one else to know 
that he has been inattentive, he can usually 
do so in one of the following ways : 

i. By briefly pausing in the lesson. 

2. By a quiet movement of the hand or 
head. 

3. By a significant glance. 

4. By giving a question to the wandering 
one. 

With a fair degree of tact the remedy may 
he applied without loss of time to any but the 
pupil immediately concerned. 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. 33 

It is very desirable that the class should 
be saved from interruptions by the teacher 
himself. The interruptions referred to are the 
worst possible, for they not only cause loss of 
time and distraction of attention, but they 
lead the whole class to believe that inattention 
is a very common, and therefore not a very 
grave offence. 

3. By calm, fixed, fearless, determined, 

patient " will power." Every teacher should 
exercise " will power " in relation to his class. 
It should never be exercised haughtily or tyran- 
nically, but always kindly and naturally. Wilful- 
ness and self-will are very different from " will 
power." "Will power" simply means the 
ability to proceed undeviatingly to a desired 
end, and bring others along with you. The 
following are the characteristics which "will 
power " should possess : 

1. It should be calm. Obedience on any terms 
is better than disobedience, but willing obedience 
must be secured by the teacher if he wishes to 
benefit his pupils. If "will power" is exerted 
in a noisy or violent manner it is offensive ; if it 
is of the fussy kind it excites ridicule. It must 



34 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

be calm if it would secure control, beneath the 
placid surface of which no rebellion lurks in 
ambush. 

2. It should be fixed. Some teachers are 
intermittent in their exercise of "will power." 
They are fully charged with energy and force 
one day, but seem to have lost connection with 
their character batteries on the next. Steady, 
even, regular, uniform control is the kind 
required. In the schoolroom and in the yard the 
teacher's influence should be supreme, whether 
he is present or absent. He must never be a 
tyrant, he should always be a governor. 

3. It should be f eatress. No one can control 
a pupil if he fears him or his parents. The 
teacher should carefully study his proper social 
and legal relationship to the pupils, their parents, 
and the school authorities. He should stand on 
a foundation of solid rock, and be ready ior 
prompt action in cases of emergency. Prompt- 
ness and deliberation should go hand in hand. 
Promptitude and haste or excitement are not 
synonymous. Hesitation and timidity on the 
part of a teacher often stir to life germs 01 
rebellion which might otherwise have been left 
to die for lack of nutriment. 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. 35 

4. It should be determined. While a teacher 
should always pay due respect and attention to 
the advice of friends, he should never allow 
either the counsel of his friends or the opposi- 
tion of foes to make him deviate from the coarse 
which he knows to be the right and just one. 
Many men fail because when a wave of oppo- 
sition meets them they feebly yield to its power 
and aimlessly drift with it; when if they had 
met it bravely and remained firm it would soon 
have passed them and left them better for its 
washing. The teacher may yield many times 
with profit to his school and to himself if he 
does it gracefully, but he can never do so when 
the question of control is at stake. He must 
then assert his "will power" in a most deter- 
mined manner, without making himself offensive 
or being tyrannical. 

5. It must be patient. This is the great requisite. 
The quality of "will power" is of great impor- 
tance, the quantity of it at a teachers disposal 
is of far more consequence. It must wear well. 
There is a dignity and a majesty in the patient 
assertion of the right and ability to control, 
which never fails to command respect. It is 
well, especially when taking charge of a new 
class, not to try to compel absolute order too 



36 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

suddenly. So long as pupils are really trying 
to do what the teacher wishes, he will, if a 
reasonable man, overlook slight offences until 
good conduct has become a habit. 

Control asserts itself chiefly through the lip, 
the tongue and the eye. They should be used in 
the inverse order to that in which they are 
named. The eye should be the exclusive medium 
of control, so far as possible ; the tongue may 
be called to its aid in cases of emergency ; the 
lip should be used very sparingly. The lip 
expresses firmness, combined with scorn or con- 
tempt, and these are sure to stir up active 
antagonism, rather than submission. A pupil 
may be, and often is, forced to yield without full 
obedience. The eye alone can convey a message 
of power and conciliation at the same time, and 
these are the elements of genuine control. 

However good a teacher's control may be, he 
must not think that he has secured the attention 
of his class merely on that account. 




~&£^ty 




CHAPTER VI. 

METHODS OF PRESERVING AND STIMULATING THE 
PUPILS' DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 



Some one calls a child an " Interrogative 
machine." Truly the appetite for knowledge 
with which nature endows him is a keen one, and 
difficult to satisfy. Some writers maintain that 
it is the duty of the school to set the child going 
mentally, that he may be self educative when he 
leaves school. If pupils left school in as self 
educative a condition as they enter it, there would 
be less ground for complaint than at pesent. The 
boy begins to " go " when very young, and for a 
few years he continues to develop at a very rapid 
rate. Very few children are dull when very 
voung. Most children make remarkable progress 
until they go to school. Then too often comes 
a period of stagnation from which many never 
emerge. Improper methods are too often the 
37 



38 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

cause of the discouraging change. The following 
are points deserving consideration by teachers 
of primary classes. 



1. The transition from the home to the 
school should b less sudden. 

The child on entering an ordinary school, passes 
from comparative freedom to confinement and 
restraint ; from bounding activity to wearisome 
quiet ; from actual things to uninteresting ab- 
stractions ; from living flowers, and birds, and 
pets to mere black marks called letters, in which 
for themselves he can have no active interest ; 
from pla)^ to work; from instinctive to com- 
pulsory attention; from fresh air and sunshine to 
bad ventilation and imperfect and often injurious 
lighting ; from the mossy bank to the hard and 
illformed seat. 

Where the Kindergarten can be introduced it 
serves to make the steps gradual in the change 
from the home to the school. The school should 
learn many lessons yet from the home and the 
Kindergarten. Teachers must study the child 
more before he enters school, and they should con- 
tinue in school more closely, the methods of self- 



THE DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 39 

education practised by him, while he was at 
liberty to follow nature's guidance. 



2. Knowledge should be used as it is ac- 
quired. Children delight in coming in contact 
with things which they can use. They care for 
what a thing does. This shows itself very early 
in Hie. The baby learning to talk, names the 
domestic animals according to the sounds they 
make. He callsthe dog " bow-wow," and the cat 
" meow." This is true whether the name of the 
animal is more or less difficult to say than the 
sound made. While they have been making such 
rapid strides in learning and mental development 
at home, they were doing so by handling the things 
around them and by using their knowledge as 
quickly as they gained it. What a change comes 
when they go to school ! Many even of the 
thoughtful class of teachers deliberately reverse 
this plan. They reason somewhat in this manner; 
" These children can not do much actual work 
yet and so we may as well save time by making 
them do the drudgery of school work now." They 
are therefore set to learn all the letters, before 
they begin to read, all the tables before they put 
them to any practical use &c. It is probable that 



40 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

the letters and the multiplication table have done 
more to stupify boys and girls than any other 
causes. Girls and boys can work, and by work- 
ing they not only learn how to work better, but 
become familiar with the elements of work they 
may be using. Even if the worst of all methods 
of teaching the names of words, the alphabetic, be 
used, no letters should be taught at first but those 
used on the first page or tablet of reading in the 
primer. The child should use the multiplication 
table, for instance, as he learns it, and he will thus 
pleasantly learn it as he uses it. Using and 
learning go hand in hand. Practical application 
is the highest and most effective style of review. 
A pupil will learn the " Two " line as far as 
" twice 4 " in four minutes, but it will probably 
forget it in an hour, unless it is allowed to apply 
the knowledge it has gained. Why not teach it 
the process of multiplying at once in five minutes 
more and then set it at work ? " Oh, the child 
should never multiply until it knows its multipli- 
cation table !" says some driller. Does the study 
of the multiplication table qualify a child for the 
comprehension of the multiplying process ? Cer- 
tainly not. Then again, the child who has been 
taught as far as "twice four" does know the 



THE DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 4I 

multiplication table, so far as he is required to put 
it in practice. His teacher can assign several 
examples with no other multiplier but 2, and no 
figures in the multiplicand but 1, 2, 3, and 4. 
It will do him great good to work the very same 
examples over a second or third time. Next day 
advancement should be made in the table and 
much practice given on both lessons, and so on to 
the end. This method will not prove a source of 
horror to pupils, but will delight them because they 
use the information as they get it. 

If an apprentice on entering a machine shop, 
were compelled by the foreman to spend months 
in learning the names of the various machines, and 
their different parts, their relations to each other, 
their uses, &c, would such a course fit him to 
take charge of even one of the machines ? The 
probability is, that long before the expiration of 
the time specified his work of learning, at first 
fascinating to him, would become, loathsome, and 
from loss of interest, he would be to a large degree 
incapacitated for the highest degree of success in 
his work. He should, and in charge of a practical 
man in any department 01 work, he does begin 
with the simplest of all the tools or machines, and 



42 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

ne learns how to use it by using it. Others are en- 
trusted to his charge when he is ready for them. 
Teachers should also be reasonable in familiar- 
izing their pupils with the tools they have to use. 
The letters, the tables, rules in grammar and other 
subjects, are merely the tools with which the child 
should be taught to educate himself, and they 
should be given to him omy as he is able to use 
them. 



3. The work of school should afford 

pleasure- If the desire for knowledge is to be 
kept alive and vigorous, if it is to survive through 
-he early years of school life, school work must 
be made attractive. Herbert Spencer says that of 
all the educational changes taking place, " The 
most significant is the growing desire to make the 
acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than 
painful — a desire based on the more or less distinct 
perception that at each age the intellectual action 
which a child likes is a healthful one for it ; and con- 
versely. There is a spreading opinion that the 
rise of an appetite for any kind of knowledge im- 
plies that the unfolding mind has become fit to 
assimilate it, and needs it tor the purposes of 
growth ; and that on the other hand, the disgust 
felt towards any kind of knowledge is a sign either 



THE DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 43 

that it is prematurely presented, or that it is pre- 
sented in an indigestible form. Hence the efforts 
to make early education amusing, and all educa- 
tion interesting. * * As a final test by which to 
judge any plan of culture, should come the ques- 
tion — Does it create a pleasurable excitement in 
the pupils ?" Discard any system of primary in- 
struction, however time honored or in accord- 
ance with theory it may be, unless it makes les- 
sons attractive. With the older children the step 
from instinctive to controlled attention must be 
gradually taken. 

It is very desirable that teachers should avoid 
any course of action which will tend to make 
learning distasteful. If men are to be self educa- 
tive when they leave school, they should have a 
love for knowledge ; certainly they must not have 
an aversion to it. Lessons should never be 
assigned as a punishment. Pupils may be com- 
pelled to do after school or at home, work which 
they have neglected to do at the right time. 
This is not a punishment for the neglect however, 
but the performance of a duty which ought to 
have been done before. 

4. School exercises should be varied as 

much as possible. Of course the programme 



44 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

of studies should be fixed, and the time table 
adhered to regularly. The plan of presenting a 
subject should be changed, however. Some new 
element should be introduced each day. In 
teaching Geography, for instance, the map may 
be used one day, blackboard and slates the next, 
and the sand-box the next ; to-day the teacher 
may point to the places he wishes to have 
remembered and the pupils find their names, 
to-morrow he may give the names and they 
find their positions on the map. The plan shouk", 
be varied during a single recitation, to a certain 
extent. So long as variety does not dissipate 
the attention, there can not be too much of it. 
Freshness stimulates mental activit)', routine 
deadens it. 



5. The child's curiosity should be kept 

alive. Some pupils are always on the tip-toe of 
expectation. The teacher who can secure such 
a condition in his class, is certain to have atten- 
tive scholars. Natural aptitude in the teacher 
has something to do in stimulating the curiosity 
of pupils. The power to sustain it, however, 
must be acquired. Pupils will not long seek to 
be fed with chaff. The teacher must be prepared 



THE DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 45 

to gratify the appetite which he aims to develop. 
He must be familiar with the subjects he has to 
teach ; he should keep well acquainted with 
all that relates to them in connection with cur- 
rent events. Hart aptly says : " To real, suc- 
cessful teaching, there must be two things, name- 
ly, the ability to hold the minds of the children, 
and the ability to pour into the minds thus 
presented sound and seasonable instruction. 
Lacking the latter ability, your pupil goes away 
with his vessel unfilled ; lacking the former, you 
only pour water on the ground." 

6. The lessons given and the subjects 
taught ought to be adapted to the ad- 
vancement of the pupils. H lessons are too 
difficult a child, will naturally turn from them, 
first in disappointment, afterwards with dislike. 
The subjects should be presented in a manner 
suited to the ages of the pupils taught. Some 
of the most interesting studies are rendered per- 
manently obnoxious by improper methods of 
teaching them to children at first. In teaching 
grammar, for instance, dry, difficult, and unin- 
teresting rules, with puzzling exceptions to the 
general rule, are memorized and recited, and the 



46 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

teacher (in addition to this outrage) actually 
deceives the unfortunate and long-suffering pupils 
by allowing them to believe that such wearisome 
drudgery is learning grammar. They, of course, 
in most cases, associate the unpleasant feelings 
they receive in school with study and learning in 
the abstract, and therefore get a distaste for 
knowledge itself. Let the methods and the sub- 
jects be appropriate for the ages of the pupils, 
and their love of learning will continue. 



7. The steps in learning should not be 

too great. If a desire for knowledge is to be 
maintained, the pupil must be able to see clearly 
how one portion of a subject is connected with 
another. The step to be taken should be based 
on those already established, and the teacher 
should remember that what appears but a mole 
hill to him may be a mountain to his pupils. 
He is the best teacher who can most clearly 
remember his own early difficulties in learning. 

8. Lessons must not be too long. This 
:s true, both as regards lessons at school and 
;hose assigned for home preparation. Long- 



THE DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE, 47 

continued lessons in school weary the mind; long 
lessons learned at home tire both mind and body. 
When learning becomes a " task " it necessarily 
ceases to be attractive in itself. It should not 
be surprising that under such circumstances 
children lose their natural eagerness for know- 
ledge. 

If the suggestions given be carried out in the 
right spirit, boys and girls will continue to be 
" interrogative machines " throughout their whole 

lives. 





CHAPTER VII. 



HOW TO GRATIFY AND DEVELOP THE NATURAL 
DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 



Activity is one of the instincts of childhood. 
It is not happy unless its mental or physical 
powers or both are engaged. "Productive activ- 
ity" is the corner stone of the delightful and 
truly philosophical system of Froebel. Give a 
child work to do of a character suited to his age, 
let it call his mental faculties and manual abili- 
ties into play, and he will be attentive, not mere- 
ly because he is occupied, but because his occu- 
pation gives him delight. Fellenberg says : 
" Experience has taught me that indolence in 
young persons is so directly opposite to their 
natural disposition to activity, that unless it is 
the consequence of bad education, it is almost 
48 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 49 

invariably connected with some constitutional 
defect." Hailman says : " Perhaps attention and 
activity of the mind are convertible terms ; for 
we observe that the mind is never attentive, 
■unless it is aroused to action by some external 
cause (such as a wonderful object, an exciting 
scene, a thrilling narrative, a deep sorrow), or 
by an internal cause — the will." It is important, 
therefore, in order to secure attention, that every 
means be taken to awaken and satisfy the child's 
mental activity. To do this it will be found 
necessary to attend to the following : — 



1. Do as little telling as possible when 

teaching. Of course, the teacher should not 
try to teach ever3 T thing by experiment, as he 
would waste time in doing so. The accumulated 
knowledge of the ages is a - store from which the 
pupils ought to be allowed to draw largely with- 
out, making all the necessary discoveries and 
progressive steps themselves. But whenever the 
teacher can lead his pupils in the development of 
a subject he should do so. He should not allow 
them to wander in search of the gold mines of 
knowledge, neither should he dig the gold and 
coin it for them. The word for " schoolmaster " 
in the Welsh language has a very suggestive 



50 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

meaning. The word for school is 'Ysgol," 
which conveys the meaning at once of progres- 
sion in learning being step by step, commencing 
at the lowest rung and going upwards. The 
Welsh name for schoolmaster is " Ysgolfeister," 
the full signification being " One that teaches to 
climb." The teacher should not merely climb 
himself and throw down to his pupils the treas- 
ures which he finds. He should teach each pupil 
to climb for himself, so that as he goes higher he 
may grow stronger. "This need for perpetual 
telling is the result of our stupidity, not the 
child's. We drag it away from the facts in 
which it is interested, and which it is actively 
assimilating for itself; we put before it facts far 
too complex for it to understand, and therefore 
distasteful to it ; finding that it will not volun- 
tarily acquire these facts, we thrust them into its 
mind by force of threats and punishment ; by 
thus denying it the knowledge it craves, and 
cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we 
produce a morbid state of the faculties, and a 
consequent disgust for knowledge in general ; 
and when, as a result partly of the stolid indo- 
lence we have brought on, and partly of still 
continued unfitness in its studies, the child can 
understand nothing without explanation, and be- 
comes a mere passive recipient of our instruction, 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 51 

we infer that education must necessarily be car- 
ried on thus. Having by our method induced 
helplessness, we straightway make the helpless- 
ness a reason for our method." * 



2- Give the pupils their rightful share in 

the Work Of Study. Too much dependence is 
placed in eye teaching by many teachers. The 
observant faculties are certainly of great im- 
portance, and the teacher who develops them 
to a high degree will be well repaid for his trouble. 
Pupils may see a great deal without receiving 
fixed impressions however. Seeing does not re- 
quire intensity of attention. The teacher cannot 
always be certain that the looking child is think- 
ing about the subject in hand. He may look at 
the teacher, or the blackboard, or an object and 
yet be thinking about his last fishing experience. 

To require each pupil to do for himself, is the 
only way of absolutely compelling him to attend. 
It is not receiving knowledge that fixes it in the 
minds of pupils, but reproducing it. If it can 
be reproduced by the hand in a visible form, the 
attention is necessarily most continuous. The 
mind must attend, if it has to guide the hand. 

* Intellectual Education. — Herbert Sftttcw. 



52 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

Each pupil should do for himself the map his 
teacher draws on the board, he must do the cor- 
rection of his own mistakes ; and if he is made to 
do work with his hands in learning any subject 
by even writing down the statements made con- 
cerning it, the impressions made will be more 
permanent than if made in any other way. The 
inattention so lamentably noticeable in most 
Sunday Schools, and many Public Schools, is 
due to the fact that pupils are mere recipients of 
information and not active participators in the 
process of learning. They are hearers, when 
they should be doers. 



3. Do not weary the minds of the pupils. 

A proper amount of physical exercise produces 
beneficial effects on the muscular system ; beyond 
a certain point it is exhaustive. So a judicious 
amount of mental exercise strengthens and devel- 
ops the mental powers, but study after the 
" fatigue point " has been reached has a debili- 
tating effect. The moderate use of the physical 
powers gives pleasure, and increases the longing 
for exertion ; so the judicious application of the 
mind awakens greater desire for study, and gives 
additional power to investigate the problems 
which may be presented for thought. Professor 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 53 

Pillans held that, " where young people are 
taught as they ought to be, they are quite as 
happy in school as at play, seldom less delighted, 
nay, often more, with the well-directed use of 
their mental energies, than with that of their 
muscular powers." 



4. Do not overload the minds of the pu- 
pils. The carrying power of a child's mind is fre- 
quently over-estimated by teachers. Many bril- 
liant boys are made to carry such large loads of 
knowledge during their schooldays, that they be- 
come mentally paralyzed to a certain extent, and 
never recover their full vigor of thought. This 
partly accounts for the fact that so many clever 
school boys turn out to be only mediocre men. 
Over eating causes dyspepsia and destroys the 
appetite for food. There are mental dyspeptics. 

5. Have matches in the various school 

SUbiectS. Who does not remember the enliven- 
ing effects of the spelling matches of his boy- 
hood ? So intensely was their attention concen- 
trated upon the subject in hand,- that grown men 
remember distinctly the very words missed by 
themselves and others in some remarkable con- 
tests. Such matches may just as well be con- 



54 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

ducted in reviewing the other school subjects as 
in spelling, and their effects in inspiriting classes 
will always be found to be very beneficial. They 
should not be held at stated times, or conducted 
in a formal and indifferent manner by the teacher, 
or they will lose their interest. 

6. Let pupils question each other. The 

contests which will awaken the highest degree of 
mental activity on the part of pupils are those 
conducted by themselves. Confine them to the 
work actually taught and give them due notice, 
and such exercises will produce the most satis- 
factory results. No other plan will set pupils to 
work for themselves more earnestly and intelli- 
gently. It is a good plan in some subjects to 
prepare a series of questions for the pupils cov- 
ering the work to be learned. These should not 
be given that the pupils may merely prepare 
answers to them, to be recited in a parrot-like 
manner. They should simply guide to the golden 
thoughts. They may be of use also to the pupils 
in preparing for the contests recommended. Pro- 
fessor T Vhite, of Oberlin College, says: "The 
pupils of a certain high school failed to be 
instructed in ' The Science of Government,' in 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 55 

which weekly exercises had been given to them 
for nearly a whole term. In despair the principal 
wrote carefully 200 questions, covering the whole 
work. These he placed in the hands of each 
pupil, and dividing the whole school into two 
sides, allowed each in turn to question the other 
side till he obtained a satisfactory answer, while 
he sat by to watch the ' slaughter of the inno- 
cents.' The first exercise was a failure, seeming 
merely to arouse the school ; the second was suc- 
cessful, and the fifth was brilliant." 



7. Question while teaching. Some teach- 
ers only ask questions while reviewing. This is a 
serious mistake. To test knowledge is certainly 
one of the functions of questioning, but it is a sub- 
ordinate one. Socratic, Instructive, Teaching, 
or Developing questioning is the most efficacious 
mode of teaching. It does not simply give infor- 
mation ; it arouses the minds of pupils to activity, 
guides the active minds in the acquisition of 
knowledge, and sets the stored minds upon the 
plan of using the information obtained. It de- 
velops not only receptive, but productive activity. 
" He who gives knowledge to the human mind is 
a benefactor ; but far greater is he who by giving 
knowledge quickens into activity and productive- 
ness the mind upon which he works. The true 



56 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

teaching process involves the power of intellectual 
quickening, which is that process by which the 
teacher excites the intellectual powers of his pu- 
pils to self-activity in the line of his teaching ; 
and to be really effective it must also lead to the 
courses of thought, feeling, purpose, and action 
which are the proper products of the truth 
taught." 

Teachers should talk and tell less, and draw 
out more. Questioning from the known to the 
unknown welds the links in the chain of know- 
ledge as they are formed, so that when completed 
they are not merely isolated facts. It gives a 
pupil a conscious power to show him that he can 
overcome difficulties tor himself. 



8. Use illustrations. There are several 
kinds of illustrations. The following should be 
largely used in teaching : 

1. Blackboard illustration' 

2. Picture, map, and chart illustration, 

3. Model illustration. 

4. Object illustration. 

5. Illustration by experiments, 
(5. Dramatic illustration. 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 57 

Blackboard illustration is of more use than 
anv or perhaps all other kinds of illustration. 
Every teacher can use it ; no teacher should try 
to teach without it. Its superiority over other 
methods of illustration consists chiefly in the fact 
that the work grows in the presence of the pupils. 
They see it made and help to make it, either by 
actually handling the crayon, or by making sug- 
gestions step by step as to what should be done 
next. The teacher who presents a finished illus- 
tration to his class weakens its effect by at least 
one half. It is nearly as bad to do the whole illus- 
tration, even in the presence of the pupils, with- 
out explanation to them, or assistance from them 
at every step. Some teachers work the complete 
solution of a problem on the board, when illus- 
trating a new rule in arithmetic or algebra with- 
out speaking or even looking at the class until 
they have finished it. Then they turn round and 
give the explanation in the stereotyped question, 
" Do you see ? " They would have interested 
their pupils a great deal more, and have educated 
them nearly as much, by tossing a copper for 
" heads or tails." The following rules should be 
practised in blackboard illustration : 

I. Let the work done be simple in its character. 



58 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

2. Avoid symbolism, rebuses, &c. 

3. Arrange the steps in the process of thought 
in logical order. 

4. Number the various steps either by figures 
or letters. 

5. The steps in the illustration should be done 
as the process of thought is developed. 

6. When illustrating distinctive characteristics, 
peculiarities of growth or construction, &c, in 
teaching botany, zoology, natural philosophy, &c, 
it is well to exaggerate the special parts to which 
attention should be directed. 

7. In solving a problem, making a diagram, 
drawing a map, explaining the construction of a 
machine, in fact in all kinds of blackboard work, 
every pupil ought to do on slate or paper what 
the teacher does on the board, and usually part 
by part after him. 

2. Picture, map, and chart illustration 

may be used in conjunction with blackboard 
illustration, both preceding and following it, to 
give a correct idea of things as wholes, and to 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 59 

shew in some cases the coloring, &c. They 
ought to be used too in testing the accuracy of 
the work done by the teacher and pupils. For 
instance, when a map has been sketched it should 
be compared in its leading outlines with the act- 
ual map to see whether the great features bear 
their proper relations to each other; whether 
Florida extends further south than California,&c. 



3. Model illustration is used by some teach- 
ers very successfully by cutting out the shapes of 
things or their parts from brown paper, &c. 
Models of machines, of the parts of the human 
frame, &c, may be obtained, which will be of 
great use in teaching some subjects. Good 
teachers, however, usually try to make most of 
their own models. 



4. In Object illustration the pupils should 

not merely look at the things used. They should 
take them in their hands and examine them. 
This will enable them to get additional ideas 
through the sense of touch, and will clearly de- 
fine those received by looking at the object at a 
distance. It will also give them a deeper interest 
in the object to be permitted to handle it. It is 
sometimes well to state the nature of the informa- 



6o HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

tion desired before passing an object around, but 
frequently the pupils should be required to exam- 
ine specimens with the view of finding out as 
much as possible about them. This will make 
them independent observers. 



5. Illustration by experiment should as 

far as possible be conducted on the same prin- 
ciples as object illustration. It produces its 
highest results when every student performs for 
himself the experiments described by the teacher. 
If this cannot be done, the pupils, unless the 
class be too large, should assist the teacher, each 
taking some part in preparing for the experiment. 

6. Dramatic illustration means represent- 
ation by action. The living, energetic teacher 
uses this method of illustration very largely, and 
if appropriate it always aids greatly in communi- 
cating knowledge. It is of much use in giving 
ideas of shape, size, direction, motion, action ol 
machines, &c. Any one who has ever seen a 
deaf mute address an audience by signs, must 
have realized to what an extent action may be 
even substituted for speech. A good teacher 
always uses his hands and arms to emphasize, 
and illustrate what he says to his class,, 



DEVELOPING MENTAL ACTIVITY. 6l 

In all kinds of illustration it is well to keep 
the pictures, charts, maps, models, objects, ap- 
paratus, &c, out of sight as much as possible 
until the time arrives for using it. This stimu- 
lates the curiosity of the pupils and prevents the 
distraction of their attention. To show pictures 
at once, or to present the spectacle of a table 
covered with apparatus is a capital method ot 
gaining attention to the pictures or apparatus. 
It may make it all the more difficult, however, on 
this account to get the attention concentrated on 
the lesson itself. 





CHAPTER VIII. 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 



"Attention to the external is called observa- 
tion, to the internal reflection." It is of the 
highest importance that the senses be trained so 
that they may be able to perform properly the 
various functions required of them through life. 
We should not aim at an impossible standard, or 
strive only to develop acuteness of the senses. 
Alertness is also required. Sharpness of vision 
will be of no service if the eyes are kept 
closed ; acuteness of hearing will do little good 
unless the mind is in a receptive attitude. The 
telephonic circuit must be established before the 
hearing produces impressions on the > brain. 
Pestalozzi held that, " Observation is the basis 
of all knowledge. The first object, then, in 
62 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 63 

education must be to lead the child to observe 
with accuracy." 

We should aim, then, to make the senses 

Attentive. 
Acute. 
Alert. 
Accurate. 

How can this be done ? 



1. By Object Lessons. The three rules 

for the development of the senses are, ist 
exercise them, 2nd exercise them, 3rd exercise 
them. Well conducted object lessons will give 
an opportunity for the required exercise better 
than any other school subject. Unfortunately 
what are called " object lessons " are commonly 
used merely for the purpose of giving informa- 
tion, rather than to develop the power of ac- 
quiring it. Object lessons should not be 
statements of facts concerning the objects used. 
The information may be valuable, but in true 
object teaching it occupies a secondary or inci- 
dental place. The great aim, indeed the only aim 



64 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

of the teacher should be to present a well selected 
system of objects to the pupils, about which they 
may exercise their senses. Lessons on "common 
things " may be taught, and if taught they should 
as far as possible be taught objectively, but 
lessons on "common things" are no more true 
" object lessons " than lessons in Geography, 
History, or Grammar. Arithmetic, Geometry, 
Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Natural History 
and Botany when properly taught are true 
object lessons. Lessons on common things in- 
tended to convey information concerning the 
source, growth, production, &c, of the things 
used in every-day life are not object lessons. 
However valuable or practical the information 
may be, if the teacher contents himself with 
merely storing his pupils' minds with it he is 
lamentably -failing to perform his true duty. 
However able the teacher may be, the shortness 
of the time during which most children attend 
school, prevents his giving information in regard 
to the greater portion of the vast field of know- 
ledge. Hailman says : " There must be a 
systematic " laying up" of positive information, 
but this is of secondary importance, compared 
with learning how to form and express ideas. 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 65 

One is the ability to work, the other the result of 
work, one is essential the other a consequence, 
one is constant, the same at all times and under 
all circumstances, the latter must change with 
time and circumstances." The teacher's duty is to 
continue the educative process began by nature 
before the school period, and to send a pupil 
to the world again at the conclusion of his school 
life fully prepared to continue under all circum- 
stances and at all times the process of self- 
education. The faculties which the child has on 
entering school should not merely be filled with 
information they should be nourished and 
strengthened. The teacher's aim in teaching 
should be first to develop, second to store the 
mind with knowledge. This is true of all sub- 
jects, but especially of object lessons. Object 
lessons should be given in teaching nearly every 
subject, however. The name " Object Lesson" is 
misleading, as it restricts broad principles to one 
comparatively unimportant department of school 
work. Many speakers on educational topics 
speak as though developing or intuition teaching 
was only to be practised while teaching object 
lessons. No greater error could be made. But 
even in " giving" an object lesson many teachers 



66 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

seem to regard the giving of mere facts as the 
great aim to be kept in view. Perhaps the most 
ridiculous feature of such object teaching is the 
fact, that teachers usually select for their lessons 
some common objects, with which the pupils 
are quite as well acquainted as they are them- 
selves. It is right to select common objects for 
proper " object lessons," but not lor information 
exercises. 

The books on object teaching are to blame 
for much of the misunderstanding in reference 
to this subject. They are mere compendiums of 
information. They give matter not method. 
*' The intention of object lessons is not so much 
to communicate information as to put children 
in the way of collecting information for them- 
selves ; to sharpen and direct their senses ; to 
teach them to see things, instead of merely 
looking at them, and to decompose the confused 
aggregate of impressions which things at first 
make upon the mind ; to get them to classify 
and connect simple phenomena with their ante- 
cedents and consequents ; to exercise their 
reason ; and to do this in Nature's own way, by 
bringing the learner, as far as possible into 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 6j 

direct contact with things, and satisfying his 
own instinctive needs." 

In teaching object lessons the following rules 
should be observed : 



i. Let every pupil have the opportunity of 
amining the object. 



ex- 



2. Let the pupils examine first with a view of 
finding out as much as possible about the object 
themselves. 

3. Let them, if necessary, then inspect it for 
specific results named by the teacher. 

They should be independent of the teacher in 
making their observations, as they will have to 
depend on themselves after they leave school, 
therefore the first method of inspection should 
be most regularly used. 



2. Reading. By true Object lessons all the 
senses may be developed. The two senses which 
teachers should specially aim to cultivate are 
hearing and seeing. " The defects in organization 
are not within the power of the preceptor ; but 
we may observe that inattention and want of 
exercise are frequently the causes of what are 



68 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

mistaken for natural defects ; and, on the con- 
trary, increased attention and cultivation some- 
times produce that quickness of eye and ear, and 
that consequent readiness of judgment, which we 
are apt to attribute to natural superiority of or- 
ganization or capacity." 

For rendering the hearing acute and alert there 
is no subject on the school programme of such 
importance as reading, if it is properly taught. 

There is a great deal of telling done improperly 
in the teaching of reading. When a pupil has 
finished his reading the teacher usually at 
once proceeds to tell him the mistakes he has 
made. " You should say re-cess 7 , instead of 
re'-cess, catch instead of ketch, get instead of git ; 
you should not pause after in ; you should 
pause after March; you should emphasize dy- 
ing, &c, &c." That this is a mistake will at 
once be seen, when it is remembered that cor- 
rect reading and speaking depend upon ear culti- 
vation more than on anything else. The great 
majority of people do not perceive, when they hear 
a word pronounced in a manner different from 
the way in which they are accustomed to pro- 
nounce it themselves. Unless some one calls 
attention to their errors, they go on mispro- 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 69 

nouncing words, which they hear pronounced 
correctly every day. This result should be 
expected, if pupils are corrected in the above 
manner throughout their school life. 

When a mistake is made in pronunciation, 
accent, emphasis, pauses, intonation, &c, the 
teacher should give the correct reading himself, 
or get one of the best pupils to do so, and call 
on the pupil who made the error to state the 
difference between his reading and that of his 
teacher. If he cannot do so, it is useless to 
ask him to " read it again " as is frequently 
done. The teacher should read the sentence, 
or that portion in which the error is made, 
in both the correct and the incorrect way, em- 
phasizing the error slightly if necessary, until 
the pupil can distinguish the one method from 
the other. In this way the ear will become 
quickened and attentive, and the pupil will be 
self-educative in this respect, as he should be 
in all others, when he leaves school. 

The seeing power may also be developed in a 
high degree by reading. The vision must be 
acute to read well. Every letter in every word 
must be looked at, and yet the perceptions must 



70 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

be sharp and clearly defined. To many pupils 
when learning the words appear indistinct, as they 
look to one reading in a faint light. This must 
be remedied by practice. It will not help the 
pupil to see accurately, if the mis-named words 
are corrected by the teacher. If the pupil, for in- 
stance, reads verily, very, and the teacher merely 
says, as most teachers do, ''Call that word very," 
the pupil's vision is not rendered more sharp. 
When mis-calling words is the only mistake made 
or the special one to be corrected, the best 
method the teacher can adopt is to say, "Read 
again carefully." The pupil can correct his own 
mistakes in this case, and he should be made to 
do s©. 



3. Spelling. While both the eye and the ear 

can be developed by means of spelling, it is mainly 
through the former that we must teach this sub- 
ject. Good spelling depends on the " memory of 
the eye." The London Times once said, " Spell- 
ing is learnt by reading, and nothing but reading 
can teach spelling." Spelling depends on the in- 
tensity of the attention with whitti pupils look at 
words and their parts while reading them. 
If teachers can succeed in developing the 
habit of close and accurate scrutiny of the let- 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 71 

ters in tl^ words during reading lessons, they 
will have little bad spelling. Careless readers 
are inaccurate spellers. The eye has to look at 
each individual letter on a page as it is read. 
Attention then cannot be sustained, as the glance 
at each letter must be instantaneous. It should, 
however, be intense, and, as most words recur 
frequently, it will be oft repeated. On the in- 
tensity and repetition of attention depend the 
accuracy and the permanence of impressions, so 
that if they can be secured the best results must 
follow in teaching an)'' subject. In regard to 
spelling, the teacher has only to secure the intens- 
sity, except in the case of words that but rarely 
appear in print. If the necessary interest cannot 
be aroused in reading to secure a sufficient degree 
of attention to the words as they are read, the 
teacher must have recourse to other methods 
which will compel the required attention. The 
best way of doing this is to make pupils write out 
the spelling lesson. It is surprising that many 
pupils will at first make mistakes even in tran- 
scription. As they can be held responsible for 
.the use of their eyes, however, they will soon 
learn by practice to see accurately and copy cor- 
rectly. Wiiea a pupil is required to write several 
times a word which he has mis-spelled, it is not 
with a view of making him think how the word is 



72 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

spelled, but to help him to see the letters it con- 
tains, and how they are arranged. The practice 
is based upon the sound principle that actual 
doing is the best means of compelling attention 
to any subject. 



4. Drawing. Drawings are executed with 
the hand, the hand is guided by the brain, and the 
brain receives its impressions about the lines to 
be drawn through the senses. This is an expla- 
nation of the general principle laid down in the 
last paragraph, that doing with the hand compels 
attention. If the sense impressions are inaccu- 
rate the hand can not be definitely guided. In 
most kinds of drawing the eye is the medium 
through which the mind obtains the ideas which 
the hand is to reproduce on paper. The eye 
therefore usually has two functions in regard to 
this subject : 

* 

i. To receive exact impressions of the copy or 
object to be drawn. 

2. To inspect the drawing as it is being ex- 
ecuted to see that it is correctly done. 

There is no subject on the school programme 
which compels attention on the part of all pupils 



CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES. 73 

to a greater extent than Dictation drawing. The 
terms used are so definite in their meaning that 
the slightest misconception of the teacher's lan- 
guage, when dictating forms and their combina- 
tions, will show itself in an incorrect picture. 
Every pupil must therefore give close attention 
in this subject or his negligence will be detected. 

5. Writing. The remarks made about the 
use of the eye in drawjng from copies on 
paper, on the^ blackboard, or from objects, 
apply also to writing, if it is properly taught. 
The eye should carefully analyze the letter 
to be written, and inspect the written letter 
with the view of finding out by comparison 
with the copy what its defects are. Unfor- 
tunately too many teachers prevent this in- 
spection by the pupils by pointing out the 
errors made, instead of merely directing at- 
tention to them, so that the pupils might 
discover their nature for themselves and thus 
become in this, as they should ultimately be- 
come in all subjects, independent of the 
teacher. 

6. Hints. There are some special exercises* 



74 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

for the development of the ability to see and 
hear. For instance a picture may be shown 
for only a few seconds to a class and then each 
pupil allowed to describe something that he 
saw in it ; or various noises may be made 
by striking different substances and otherwise, 
in the hearing but not within the sight of 
the pupils, that they may form opinions as to 
the causes of the various sounds produced. 

Notes on a musical instrument should be 
sounded at random until each pupil could 
recognize them unerringly as they are given. 
Other exercises of a similar nature will sug- 
gest themselves to teachers. They may take 
the form of games to relieve the wearisome- 
ness or the monotony of school work. 



«#*; 





CHAPTER IX. 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 



1. Get the sympathy of your class, if 

your pupils are interested in you, they can 
he more easily interested by you in their 
iessons. The love of approbation is a strong 
motive, if the teacher is liked by the pupils. 
The desire to please a kind teacher will lead 
to great efforts to concentrate the attention 
on the subject he teaches. Teachers should 
strive to be cheerful, kind, courteous, polite, 
and discriminating in all their intercourse 
with their pupils in and out of school. "Good 
mornings " are easily given, but not easily 
forgotten. 

75 



76 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION, 

2. Get the confidence of your class. 

Let them see not merely that you regard the 
subjects you teach as of great importance, 
but also that you arouse no inquiring interest 
whose questions you cannot answer. Be pre- 
pared with your work. Acknowledge frankly 
your lack of information in regard to any 
question which comes up unexpectedly and 
which you have not before considered. If 
you do so your pupils will have implicit faith 
in you, when you assume to speak definitely. 

3. Be magnetic- It is not enough to 
merely attract a pupil's attention, it must be 
held. The teachers manner has a good deal 
to do with holding the attention of his class. 
He should for the time, make the pupils for- 
get their individual personality, and become 
one in aim and purpose with himself. How 
can this be done? 

i. The teacher must understand his subject 
and have his lesson arranged so that he is 
not conscious of mental strain in teaching it. 

2. He must believe his lesson to be im- 
portant. 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 77 

3. He must be earnest and enthusiastic, in 
order to stir up a corresponding zeal on the 
part of his pupils. 

4. He must not be listless, cold, formal, or 
mechanical in his teaching. 



4. Appeal to the natural instincts of a 

child. The following should be used as incen- 
tives to attention : — 

1. Curiosity, The desire to know, the inquisi- 
tive faculty that worries busy mothers, and, in 
too many homes and schools, dies from lack of 
exercise and nourishment, 

2. Love of activity. Mental activity gives quite 
as much delight to a healthy child as physical 
exercise. Neither affords pleasure, if it degen- 
erates into drudgery. There are few boys who 
appreciate very highly the privilege of digging 
ditches day after day. Mental ditching is no 
more attractive to them. 

3. Sympathy. This leads to unity of purpose 
and co-operation between teacher and pupils. 
They should get out of their own channels of 
thought and into his, for the time being. It is 
clear that the broader and deeper his channel is, 



78 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

the more easily his pupils may get into it, and 
the more rapid will be their progress in it. 

4. Love of praise. If the pupil has the proper 
amount of respect for his teacher, he will be very 
desirous of earning his approbation. Teachers 
should not be too sparing in their commendation 
of earnest efforts. Praise for honest work. 

5. Fear of offending. The pupil who loves his 
teacher will endeavor to avoid causing him an- 
noyance, and will be glad to learn his lessons or 
give attention, if he can save his teacher pain by 
doing so. 

6. Emulation. While too great a rivalry is 
likely to produce evil results that may outweigh 
the good done, it is well to, use, as a motive 
power, as much of the spirit of emulation as will 
awaken increased interest, and arouse to ener- 
getic work. 

7. Appreciation of resulting benefits. As pupils 
grow older, they should be led to take an interest 
in study for its ultimate aims, developing cha- 
racter, and fitting for usefulness in the various 
walks of life. 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 79 

5. Think out each lesson for yourself. 

Do not merely memorize lessons, or depend 
upon those prepared by others, however good 
they may be. Let the lesson become your 
own by a careful process of thought, let this 
process be repeated until it has become fixed, 
and your personal, magnetic power will be in- 
creased very largely. There is as much 
difference in the personal influence of a teacher 
whose lesson has been thought out, and that 
of one whose lesson has been learned by 
rote, as there is between the attractiveness of 
an orator who speaks without notes, and the 
man who reads his sermons or speeches. 

The one teacher can give his attention to 
his class, the other must attend to his les- 
son, lest he may forget it. 

The difference in the effect produced by 
the two ways of teaching is much greater 
with children than with adults. 

6- Use the pupils' eyes. If the interest 
is beginning to flag, show the pupils some- 
thing. Illustrate the work in some way, even 
if you have to change the designed order of 



80 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

your lesson to make the illustration appro- 
priate. The teacher who only talks to his 
class, uses only half his teaching power, and 
employs less than half of the receptive power 
of the pupils. It is often a good way to begin 
with an illustration, so as to concentrate the 
attention at once upon the subject in hand, and 
drive out the thoughts which have been occupying 
the minds of the scholars. 



7. Give occasional rests. Giving fixed and 
intense attention is an exhaustive effort. Rest 
does not necessarily mean cessation from effort. 
Relief may be given to one faculty by the exer- 
cise of another. Variety is in many cases equi- 
valent to rest. 

I 

8. Bo not distract attention- It is wrong 

to stop the work of a whole class to scold 
one pupil for inattention, or even to notice 
his listlessness in such a way as to discon- 
cert others. A question will be sufficient to 
arrest and reprove him. " Teachers themselves 
often distract the attention of children by the 
injudicious way in which they handle a sub- 
ject ; by importing into their lesson irrelevant 
matter ; by mixing up information that ought 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 8l 

to be kept distinct ; by a see-saw mode of 
procedure ; by exhibiting pictures, specimens, 
etc., before they are required, and by leav- 
ing them before the class after they have 
served their purpose. 



9. Do not be discouraged if children 
at first have difficulty in giving fixed at- 
tention. It is hard work to give continued 
attention. The teacher should develop the 
power gradually at first. Currie expresses this 
idea well. He says, " The power of attention is 
the result of habit. Time must therefore be 
allowed for its growth. The first efforts exacted 
from the child should be gentle ; one point should 
be presented at a time, that he may not be be- 
wildered by multiplicity ; the strain on his 
attention should not be long continued ; he 
should be relieved before he is compelled to 
desist from fatigue ; one success will make a 
subsequent one easier of attainment ; failure 
will make the next attempt more arduous." 

10. Use judgment in questioning. The 

following rules concerning questioning have spe- 
cial reference to securing attention : — 



82 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

i. Do not ask questions in rotation. 

2. Do not point to the pupil whom you wish to 
answer while asking a question. 

3. Do not even look fixedly at the pupil whom 
you wish to answer, while giving the question. 

4. State questions to the class as a whole; ask 
one member for the answer. 

5. Do not wait an instant for the answer when 
reviewing most subjects. 

6. Do not look steadily at the pupil who is 
answering. 

7. Do not repeat a question to oblige those who 
were inattentive. 

8." Be sure to ask questions to those who are in 
the slightest degree inattentive. 

11. Bo not depend too much on simul- 
taneous answering. If you do, you cannot be 
sure that your pupils are giving intelligent atten- 
tion. They may join mechanically in repeat- 
ing an answer without thinking. Pupils may be 
taught to speak out by simultaneous answer- 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 83 

ing, and time may sometimes be saved by its 
use. Simultaneous repetition and simultaneous 
answering must not be confounded. The fre- 
quent repetition of anything to be learned by 
rote is often the quickest and surest way of 
impressing it on the minds of pupils. All the 
members of a class if well trained, maj' res- 
ponsively repeat brief statements made by the 
teacher while teaching. They may even an- 
swer together when being reviewed, if the 
teacher wishes the answer to be given in a set 
form of words. Even then there is a danger 
that the indolent will wait for the keynotes 
from the leaders. They should never answer 
together while being taught, unless their an- 
swers can be given by a single word. If the 
answer to a question requires independent 
thought, and it is of little consequence unless 
it does so, it should not be answered simul- 
taneously, as each pupil may have a different 
answer. If the answers are certain to be 
literally the same they may be given at the same 
time. Even simultaneous repetition requires 
great care. The teacher must speak with the 
greatest possible precision and distinctness, and 
he must listen with the utmost care to the res- 



84 HOW TO SECURE AND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

ponses made. These responses should be given 
in a natural tone of voice. Classes that are 
, allowed to repeat together are liable to acquire 
a loud drawling manner of speaking that is 
very disagreeable. Every teacher should re- 
member, however, that in its most perfect form 
simultaneous answering is the most mechanical 
kind of teaching. It is word grinding, and 
generally the words even if correctly uttered 
form but an " unmeaning jargon " to the pupils. 

Many very ludicrous examples might be given 
to show that children do not even get the right 
words when taught to repeat in concert. 

A girl who had learned in this wajr to repeat 
Byron's lines on the Battle of Waterloo, grew 
to be a woman with the impression that one 
line read : 

Ah Marm % it is, it is the cannons' opening roar. 

Sunday school children frequently make dread- 
ful parodies of the hymns taught to them. 

The following answers were given by pupils 
eleven years of age in one of the schools of 
London, England. They had been accustomed 
to repeat the catechism half an hour of each 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 85 

day in day school and in Sunday school for 
four or five years, and this is what they wrote : 

* " My duty toads God is to bleed in him to 
fering and to loaf withold your arts withold my 
mine withold my sold and with my sernth to 
whirchp and to give thanks to put my old trast 
in him to call upon him to onner his old name 
and his world and to save him truly all the 
days of my life's end. 

My dooty tords by nabers to love him as 
thyself and to do to all men as I wed thou 
shall do and to me to love onner and suke my 
farther and mother and 'bey the queen and aU 
that are pet in a forty under her to smit my- 
self to all my goones teachers spartial pastures 
and masters who oughten myself lordly and 
every to all my betters to hut nobody by would 
nor deed to be trew and jest in all deelins to 
beer no malis nor ated in your arts to kep 
my ands from pecking and steel my turn from 
evil speak and lawing and slanders not to civit 
or desar othermans good but to lern labour 
trewly to get my own leaving and to do my 
dooty in that state if life and to each it hes 
please God to call men." 




86 HOW TO SECURE >ND RETAIN ATTENTION. 

Another gave the following answer to the 
question " Who was Moses ? " 

" He was an Egypshin. He lived in a bark 
maid of bull rushers and he kep a golden calf 
and worship braizen snakes and he het nuthin 
but kwales and manner for forty year. He 
was kort by the air of his ed while riding 
under the bow qf a tree and he was killed 
by his Abslon as he was a hanging from the 
bow. His end was pease." 

Do not be deceived. Simultaneous answer- 
ing is not a developing exercise. The very 
pupils who should attend most carefully, often 
do not attend at all, when this method is 
adopted. 



TEACHERS PROFESSIONAL WORKS. 



WORKS BY DR. UIciEJLLAIV, 



mcJLellan and Kirkland's Examination 

Papers in Arithmetic 1 00 

A complete series of Problems, designed for use 
in Schools and Colleges, and especially adapted 
for tbe preparation of Candidates for Teachers' 
Certificates, by J. A. McLellan, M.A., LL.D., 
Inspector of High Schools, and Thomas Kirk- 
land, M.A., Science Muster Normal School, 
Toronto. 6th Edition— revised. 

Mc Leila u and Kirk land's Examination 

Papers— Part 1 50 

Containing the Examination Papers for admis- 
sion to High Schools, and for Candidates for 
Third Class Teachers' Certificates. 

Hints and Answers to Mcliellnn and Kirk- 
land's Examination Papers 1 00 

Containing answers to problems and solutions to 

all difficult questions. Prepared by the authors. 

2nd Edition. 

The leading American Educational Journal 

(National Teacher's Monthly)' says of McLellan and 

Kirkland's Examination Papers: "In our opinion, 

the best collection of problems on the American 

continent." 

JleLellan's Mental Arithmetic -Part I. 30 

Containing the Fundamental Rules, Fractions and 
Analysis. By J. A. McLellan, M.A., LL.D., In- 
spector of High Schools, Ontario. 3rd Edition. 

Mcljellan's Mental Arithmetic— Part II 45 

By the same author, fully treats Percentage in its 
■yarious applications, General Analysis, Stocks 
and Shares, Interest, Discount, etc., etc., and 
gives practical solutions of almost every type of 
question likely to be met with in any treatise 
on Arithmetic. 3rd Edition— revised. 



TEACHERS PROFESSIONAL WORKS. 



TTIE-S TEACHER'S HAND-BOOK OF 
ALGEBRA. 

By J. A. McLELLAN, M.A., LL.D., Inspector of High 
Schools, Ontario. Price, $1.25. 

The Hand-book contains over 2,500 Exercises, including 
about 350 Solved Examples, illustrating every type 
of question in Elementary Algebra. 

It contains complete explanation of Horner's Multipli- 
cation and Division, with application not given in 
the Text Books. 

It contains a more complete illustration of the Theory 
of Divisors, with its beautiful applications, than is to 
be found in any Text Book. 

It contains what able Mathematical Teachers have pro- 
nounced to be the "finest chapter on factoring that 
has ever appeared." 

It contains the " finest selection of properly classified 
Equations, with methods of resolution andreduction, 
that; has yet appeared." 

It contains a set of Practice Papers, made up by select- 
ing the best of the questions set by the University of 
Toronto during twenty years. 

It is a Key of Methods, a Repertory of Exercises, which 
cannot fail to make the teacher a better teacher, and 
the student a more thorough algebraist. 

Most excellent manual. — Ohio Educational Journal. 

Its Author.— It is the work of one of the first mathema- 
ticians in the country. It should bo in the hands of 
every teacher.— British Whig, Kingston. 

Best Algebra published.— -News, Kingston. 

Useful to teachers who desire to obtain a thorough grasp 
of the subject, and to learners who wish to make 
preparation for an extended course of algebraic 
study.— Maryland School Journal (Hon. M. A. Neivtll, 
State Supt. of Education, Editor. 

Compact and Useful.— ScJiool Bulletin, Syracuse, N.T. 

A capital volume, and prepared by one who understands 
his business. — New York School Journal. 

A useful supplement to the text books in common use.— 
School Guardian, England. 

A valuable work for Teachers. — Barnes' Educational 
Monthly. 

"The best algebra for teachers I have ever seen."— From 
one of the greatest authorities on the subject in the 
United States, Dr. Stringham, John Hopkins TJtfver' 
sity, Baltimore. 

Key to Hand-book of Algebra— 2nd Edition 1 68 



THE TEACHER'S HAND-BOOK. OF 

ALQERRA. 

By J. A. McLELLAN, MA., LL.D., Inspector of High 
Schools, Ontario. Price, $1.25. 

ENGLAND. 

No better proof of the excellence of this book can be 
given than the following quotation from the Educa- 
tional Times, the organ of the College of Preceptors, 
England, and the highest authority on educational 
matters in Great Britain :— 

"This is the work of a Canadian Teacher and Inspector, 
whose name is honorably known beyond the bounds 
of his native province, for his exertions in develop- 
ing and promoting that admirable system of public 
instruction, which has placed the Dominion of 
Canada so high, as regards education, not only 
among the British Colonies, but among the civilized 
nations of the world. We know of no work in this 
country that exactly occupies the place of Dr. 
McLellan's, which is not merely a text book of 
Algebra, in the ordinary sense, but a Manual of 
Methods for Teachers, illustrating the best and most 
recent treatment of algebraical problems and solu- 
tions of every kind. 

" Teachers who wish to lay a good foundation for their 
pupils before proceeding to the higher branches of 
Mathematics, will do well to obtain Dr. McLellan's 
volume, which contains within a small compass one 
of the best collections of modern algebraical problems 
'gathered from the works of the great masters of 
analysis,' which has come under our notice for a 
considerable time." 

FEANCE. 

From one of the ablest living Mathematicians, Monsieur 
Paul Mansion, Professor of Mathematics in the "Uni- 
versity of Ghent, Assistant-Editor of " Nouvelle Cor- 
respondence Mathematique," and Editor in Chief of 
"Mathises," &c. His writings have twice been 
crowned by the Boyrtl Academy of Belgium, and he 
was awarded, in 1872, Great Prize in Mathematical 
Science. He says of the Hand-Book :— " I have found 
the Work of M. McLellan extremely well adapted to 
its purpose. It is one of those rare works that fulfil 
all the promises of the preface. I have especially 
admired the skilful way in which he has brought 
within the compass of Elementary Algebra a class 
of questions, which we, in our French and German 
books, only introduce into the parts exclusively 
taught in Universities." 

New and Revised Edition o, Key to Handbook, now 
ready. Price, $1.50. 



teachers' professional works. 



MISTAKES IN TEACHING. 

By J. LAUGHLIN HUGHES, Supt. Public 
Schools, Toronto. 



Second Edition. Price 5© Cents. 



This work discusses, in a terse manner, over one hundred 
of the mistakes commonly made by untrained or 
inexperienced teachers. The mistakes are arranged 
under the following heads: 

1. Mistakes in Management. 2. Mistakes in Discip- 
line. 3. Mistakes in Methods. 4. Mistakes in 
Manneb. 

We advise every teacher to invest fifty cents in the pur- 
chase of this useful volume. — New England Journal 
of Education. 

It contains good sense and wise counsel to teachers. All 
young teachers will find the book a help in their work 
— one of the best to be had. — Educational Weekly, 
Chicago. 

For young teachers I know of no book that contains in 
tbe same compass so much matter directly bearing 
on their^ork, and capable of being immediately util- 
ized.— Hon. M. A. Newell, State Superintendent of 
Education, in Maryland School Journal. 

Eminently practical. Most readable book for teachers 
that we have seen lately. — Teacher's Advocate, Pa. 

We know of no book of the size that contains so many 
valuable suggestions for teachers, young or old.— 
Educational Journal of Virginia. 

It contains more hints of practical value to teachers than 
any book of its size known to us. — Ohio Educational 
Monthly. 

It might with profit be read aloud at teachers' meetings 
everywhere, in fact it is a sort of Teachers' Looking 
Glass.— Barnes' Educational Monthly. 

We know of no book containing more valuable sugges- 
tions to teachers. — Central School Journal, Iowa. 

It is sensible and practical.— School Bulletin, Syracuse, 
NY. 



teachers' professional works. " 
The Canada School Journal 

HAS BECEIVED 

An Honorable Mention at Paris Exhibition, 1878. 
Recommended by the Minister of Education, Ont. 
Recommended by the Council of Public Instruction, Que. 
Recommended by Chief Supt. of Education, N. B. 
Recommended by Chief Supt. of Education, N. S. 
Recommended by Chief Supt. of Education, B. C. 
Recommended by Chief Supt. of Education, Man. 

THE GANADA SCHOOL JOURNAL 

IS EDITED BY 

A Committee of some of the Leading Educationists in 
Ontario, assisted by able Provincial Editors in the 
Provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and British Colum- 
bia, thus having each section of the Dominion fully 
represented. 

Contains Twenty-four pages of Reading Matter 

Live Editorials ; Contributions on important Educational 
topics ; Selections— Readings for the School Room ; 
and Notes and News from each Province. 
PRACTICAL DEPARTMENT will always contain useful 

hints on methods of teaching different subjects. 
MATHEMATICAL DEPARTMENT gives solutions to 

difficult problems also on Examination Papers. 

OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT contains such regulations as 

may be issued from time to time. 

Subscription, $1.00 per annum, strictly in advance. 

A. Club of 1,000 Subscribers from Nova, Scotia, 

EDUCATION OFFICE, 
(Copy) Hameax, N.S., Nov. 16, 1878. 

Messrs. ADAM MILLER & CO., Toronto, Ont. 

Deab Sibs,— In order to meet the wishes of our 
teachers in various parts of the Province, and to secure 
for them the advantage of your excellent periodical, I 
hereby subscribe in their behalf for one thousand (1,000) 
copies at club rates mentioned in your recent esteemed 
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lists will be forwarded to your office in a few days. 
Yours truly, 
DAVID ALLISON, Chief Supt. of Education. 
Address, W. J. GAGE & CO., Toronto, Canada. 



Cage's Scliool Examiner 

AND 

Monthly Review 

Of Science, Literature and'Current Events, 



A Magazine for the School Boom and Study, containir 

EXAMINATION PAPERS 

on the subjects taught in the High and Public Schools, 
and designed for the use of Teachers in conducting 
Monthly Examinations, and in the daily work of the 
School Room, and for the use of Students preparing for 
the Intermediate and all Official Examinations. 

In addition to Original Papers prepared by Specialists 
on the various su bjects, valuable selections will be made 
from the University, High School and Public School 
Examinations in Europe and America, as well as from 
Normal School and other Examinations for Teachers, 
both Professional and Non-Professional. 

The Magazine will also contain in a brief and readable 
form a comprehensive 

RECORD OF THE WORLD'S WORK 

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and General Pleaders with a well-digested summary of 
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Issued 15th of each Month. 

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Address— W. J. GAGE & CO., Toronto, Canada. 






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